What is the Sensitivity of Ocean Biogeochemistry to the Efficiency of the Biological Carbon Pump?

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OCCI Funded Project: 2008

Summary

The factors controlling the efficiency with which
particulate organic carbon is transferred from surface to depth are still not
well understood, and as a result, the biological carbon pump is crudely
represented in global models. Here, we propose a three step data analysis and
modeling project:

1) to test the sensitivity of a global ocean
biogeochemical-ecosystem-circulation model to the representation of the
biological pump,

2) to use the new data syntheses to develop and incorporate
more mechanistic rules for therepresentation of the biological pump in the ocean model, and

3) to test
the response of the biological pump to future changes in climate.

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